Review: Maps to the Stars (2014, Dir. David Cronenberg)

Julianne Moore is an aging, desperate starlet in David Cronenberg’s scathing satire.

Maps to the Stars – Walking that fine line between disturbing, traumatic tension and campy perversion has always been David Cronenberg’s speciality. Whether it’s stylistically subdued but potent (Spider, A Dangerous Method) or insanely laced with theory and alternative reality (Videodrome, Crash) – or that sweet spot in between (A History of Violence) – Cronenberg is determined to make films his own way and lure audiences into his web of tormented souls and psychosexual chaos. Within the first ten minutes of the hallucinatory and dream-like polish of Maps to the Stars, it’s clear that Cronenberg is espousing usual formula and setting his eyes on Hollywood subversion. But what progressively reveals itself is a film of shocking depth and unpredictable absurdity, and horrifyingly amusing (or amusingly horrifying) study of characters wired by their pasts. The warped story focuses on two titans of the entertainment industry – Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) and Benji Weiss (Evan Bird) – who are haunted by personal demons and terrifying secrets involving their families’ unusual dynamics. Havana constantly sees the ghost of her dead mother (Sarah Gadon) who played an iconic role Havana is desperately trying to revive, while Benji sees disturbing visions and is visited by his estranged sister Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) – in town working as Havana’s personal assistant and harboring ulterior motives. Also factoring into the story are Agatha and Benji’s parents (John Cusack, Olivia Williams), a self-help guru and business tycoon in the industry. Together, they are all part of a Hollywood family who indulges in perverse and toxic secrets that reflect the corrosive environment in which they thrive. Bruce Wagner’s screenplay is unmerciful in its scathing showbiz satire, and the story is as chaotic, overblown, and operatic as they come. Though, as Cronenberg often does, he makes it work by perfecting a tonal balance of dark comedy and horrifying drama, and makes it linger by grounding the absurdity of characters’ troubles with disturbing truths. He’s clearly fascinated by the family as not only an entity, but a structure – a structure in which people are trapped, secrets are kept, traumas are unforgotten, and harm is stained. By drawing compelling and palpable parallels to the entertainment at large cleverly through his dream-like prism of a tone, Cronenberg’s film is a who-haunts-who tale in which incestuous relations (figuratively and literally) scare and scar each member and the possibility of escape is as unattainable as it is dangerous. Demons, as Agatha, Benji, and Havana realize, can be kept in only so long until they prove lethal. Cronenberg and Wagner make for a striking team, winding together a story and characters that have serious sting. The ensemble is also uniformly unexpected and inspired – Robert Pattinson’s supporting turn is impressive, Cusack and Williams are chilling, and Bird is remarkably impacting and resonant. But Wasikowska and Moore illuminate the brewing chaos of tinseltown with ferocity. Wasikowska, as she did in Park Chan-wook’s Stoker, brings life to a character of unhinged and vibrant energy with a frightening ease. Moore is simply mind-blowing – having the most fun onscreen in several years, she blends the insanity of Gloria Swanson with the childish ignorance of Lindsay Lohan, creating a monstrous anti-heroine determined to circle her way around empathy. It’s a jarring and jaw-breaking turn, showing Moore sinking her teeth into a character with a rare combination of glee, determination, and understanding. Cronenberg orchestrates all his actors, and the rest of his ingredients – including a minimal but alluring score from Howard Shore – into a film that may seem like the twisted cousin of Sunset Boulevard and Mulholland Dr., yet is a lurid and potent nightmare that has a terrorizing bite of its own.

Here’s the trailer:

Review: Stoker (2013, Dir. Park Chan-Wook)

Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska are in for a bloody surprise in Park Chan-Wook’s distorted horror film.

Stoker – “Less is more” is a saying that get tossed around a lot in film criticism, but Korean director Park Chan-Wook demolishes that theory with pride and panache with his first English-language feature. Stoker, starring Mia Wasikowka (Jane Eyre), is a hypnotic, psychosexual Hitchcock inversion with plenty of chills, kitsch, and overt stylistic tendencies. This bloody, southern gothic melodrama tells the story of India Stoker (Wasikowska) whose father just died in a car-accident and is dealing with her erratically mourning mother (Nicole Kidman). Suddenly, her mysterious, stranger of an uncle (Matthew Goode) arrives to “comfort” the family during their rough time – only to have his true intentions and ulterior motives unmasked as he forms a close, unsettling, and violent bond with India. This may sound like an unconventional remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, but the master of suspense’s earlier work is merely a framework for Chan-Wook to subvert the regular cinematic idea of family and plunge into the dark, twisted depths of his characters. Wentworth Miller’s script crafts India as fractured, vulnerable, and oddly conditioned to think for herself and not trust others, while Chan-Wook’s striking visuals (a spider running up her leg, casting her in distorted moonlight) convey her disturbingly natural descent into darkness. The pairing of the script and Chan-Wook’s unnerving choices portray this kind of dance between India and Uncle Charlie as horrific, disconcerting, sexual, and even amusing. They are drawn together by each other’s sinister nature, and impact one another’s actions and motivations in the most absorbingly strange ways. Boundaries are pushed and taboos are displayed in the Stoker family with a bloody verve and kinetic style. While the pacing is solid and the story develops with an exciting fervor, Chan-Wook unfortunately goes a bit overboard with the visuals and editing – in certain scenes, they become less entrancing and more dizzying (a specific long take of India and Charlie talking to a suspicious sheriff has so many tracking loops that it loses its impact). But, that said, Chan-Wook still impressively tells this horror story with a balance of self-aware kitsch and burning tension through elaborate cutting, beautiful cinematography, and a dynamite soundtrack (Nancy Sinatra’s “Summer Wine” is especially used well in a humorous yet eerie seduction scene between Goode and Kidman). Finally, the three main actors could not seem to have had more fun with their roles. Wasikowska nails the subtle nuances of her character’s underlying imbalance while still succeeding at being frightening; Goode is alluringly menacing and exudes violent and sexual energy; and Kidman continues her embracement of borderline unlikable, disturbed characters as India’s mother with carefully campy passion and comic timing. Stoker may surrender itself to Chan-Wook’s indulgent style from time to time, but it’s still a harrowing, funny, and compelling piece of horror. A-

Trailer coming soon!